Friday, February 18, 2011

Horizon - A long way to fall

Horizon - A long way to fall is a new project created by Andrew Wildman, an artist who'll be known to many of you for his work on various comics over the years from Thundercats to Transformers and the strip Frontier: The Weird Wild West for The DFC. He's also worked outside of comics, in character and environment design and animated movie production for the TV and games industries. He also founded the charity Draw the World Together to raise funds to enable education possibilities for street children around the world and co-owns Wildfur Productions with Simon Furman.

Having always worked as an artist, Andrew is now expanding his own horizons to draw and write his own graphic novel. Horizon - A long way to fall is described as "a graphic novel about love and loss, fear and freedom, a toy rabbit, and VERY big robots".

The main character is Ali, a 15 year old girl. As the website explains: "An age in-between. An age where she isn't a child or an adult. An age of confusion. Bullied at school and after a row with her mother that she cant even remember the reason for she sits in her room. Alone. With that dark tension boiling in her gut again. Why is it like this? Why don’t they ever listen?The tears dry in her eyes and she grabs hold of the only thing she cares for from 'back then' and may even take with her into her future, her toy rabbit... and falls asleep.BANG! Eyes wide open she is awake, or so she thinks. And then... The adventure begins."

The novelty with this book is that Andrew is looking for "Crowdfunding", which is basically readers funding the project up front, with a figure of your own choice. In return the sponsors will receive updates on the book and, depending on the amount you contribute, anything from having your name printed in the book (and a signed copy) to an opportunity to own an original canvas of the characters painted in acrylics.

The book itself sounds like a refreshing change from much of the dark, heavy material around today, and should appeal to all ages. It seems like a worthwhile project to donate to if you can afford to. The goal is to raise money to seed the project and to help with marketing costs but, as Andrew says on his website, "its not necessarily about that. Its more to do with giving others the opportunity to be involved in the genesis of something new. A pre-order campaign that will allow you to be along for the ride and get your name forever in the book. Or to take up any of the other opportunities on offer here to order limited edition prints, deluxe format books and original artwork. The choice is yours. You can be involved as much as you like."

As ever, British comics have to adapt to survive. Today it's tougher than ever, with a retail system that makes publishing new titles difficult and established publishers are reticent to be experimental in the current economic climate. Crowdfunding may be one way forward to help new ideas off the ground.

To find out more about Horizon, and to see samples of the book, visit the website and join in if you can:

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About this blog:

Established in 2006, BLIMEY! is dedicated to British comics past and present. Images are copyright their respective publishers and are only used here for review purposes.

The images of comics on my blog are scanned from my own personal comics collection or, in the case of some current issues, are promotional images sent to me by the publishers. On the rare occasion when I might use an image from another site I always credit the source. If you take images I've scanned to use on your own blog/site I'd appreciate it if you'd have the good manners to show the same courtesy.

I operate zero tolerance to websites or blogs that indulge in wholesale piracy of comics. If you're a genuine comics fan, support the industry by buying the comics.

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About Me

I work as a professional humour comics artist and writer and have been freelancing full time since 1984, creating many characters such as TOM THUG, PETE AND HIS PIMPLE, COMBAT COLIN, BRICKMAN, ROBO-CAPERS, DEREK THE TROLL, SUBURBAN SATANISTS and others.
I've freelanced for IPC, Marvel Comics, Egmont, Panini,D.C. Thomson, and many others, covering the comics field from originated characters to licensed properties, pre-school to adult on comics such as BUSTER, OINK!, BEANO, DANDY, TRANSFORMERS, SONIC THE COMIC, TOXIC, VIZ, CiTV TELLYTOTS, LEGO ADVENTURES, HERMAN HEDNING, SWEET FA, ACTION FORCE, SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, RAMPAGE, LUCKY BAG COMIC, SWIFTSURE, WARLOCK, WHITE DWARF, ACES WEEKLY, THE DAREDEVILS, THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL, and many more.
My recent comics work has included:'Team Toxic' for Egmont's TOXIC magazine'Postman Prat', 'Kid Cops' and 'The Dark Newt' for THE DANDY'Rasher', 'Pup Parade', 'Lord Snooty' and 'Ivy the Terrible' for THE BEANO.
'The Daft Dimension' for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE.